ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Abhijit Banerjee
Abhijit Banerjee BLOGS
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FROM TOI PRINT EDITION
Back to Modern Times: The new obsession with longer work days
April 6, 2025, 5:00 AM IST
The recent boom next to my workplace at MIT has brought in a number of restaurants that offer healthy food for busy people. The menu is generally Mediterranean inspired, but with their own little twists….
April 6, 2025, 5:00 AM IST
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A bigger India: Tourism beyond the Taj
March 1, 2025, 11:10 PM IST
In the 1990s, I flew a lot between Delhi and Udaipur. This being part of the ‘Golden Triangle’, the plane usually had a fair number of tourists, many from France. Seated somewhere near on the…
March 1, 2025, 11:10 PM IST
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Jab they date: A Valentine’s Day wish for Indian women
February 8, 2025, 9:59 PM IST
My parents were very sweet together. As students at the London School of Economics, he impressed her with his lucid understanding of the material. That set the tone for their relationship — she was always…
February 8, 2025, 9:59 PM IST
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Jalebis with a side of smoky air
January 5, 2025, 5:00 AM IST
It was October of the year 1981. I was fresh at JNU, feeling slightly homesick. This was before automatic inter-state dialing (ISD) revolutionised our telephonic culture. The only way to call Kolkata from Delhi was…
January 5, 2025, 5:00 AM IST
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FROM TOI PRINT EDITION
Make America bland again
December 1, 2024, 4:00 AM IST
I spent my first American Christmas in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania visiting the family of a friend at Harvard. He was genial and easy-going, from a Christian Republican family. They took their religion very seriously, he said….
December 1, 2024, 4:00 AM IST
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FROM TOI PRINT EDITION
Men, you can’t sweep this under the rug
November 3, 2024, 5:32 AM IST
When I first came back from America, I would be routinely asked, “Over there, you have to do everything by yourself don’t you?”. I would respond, “Yes, cooking, dishes, washing clothes…” and on occasion, with…
November 3, 2024, 5:32 AM IST
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Zamindars to billionaires, the urge to splurge
October 5, 2024, 10:03 PM IST
After a week of virtual immersion in the Ambani festivities, an indignant friend asked me: ‘This wedding, why would anyone do something like that?’, ‘Such extravagance — won’t people in your country get upset? Won’t…
October 5, 2024, 10:03 PM IST
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Why I don’t want to start a restaurant
September 1, 2024, 5:00 AM IST
My wife and I are cowards: imaginary violence on a small computer screen scares us. We are, therefore, natural clients for the recent spate of TV and movie dramas about running restaurants, where a grease…
September 1, 2024, 5:00 AM IST
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FROM TOI PRINT EDITION
Potatoes and pills: Feeding the body when feeling frail
August 4, 2024, 5:00 AM IST
I met my grandfather when I was 4 and he was 64. I remember thinking he was the oldest person I had ever met. I am now almost the same age as he was then….
August 4, 2024, 5:00 AM IST
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Mangoes and manners
July 7, 2024, 5:00 AM IST
It’s so long ago that I no longer remember why or where I was going. It was a local train, one of those green and yellow compartments with an open door divided by a single…
July 7, 2024, 5:00 AM IST
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FROM TOI PRINT EDITION
Memories, metaphors and mutton qorma
June 13, 2024, 12:06 AM IST
Meal times are strange times. In our memories, they are often hallowed, a time of comfort and community. Your mother leaning over you, her face lit with love, dropping a dollop of homemade ghee on…
June 13, 2024, 12:06 AM IST
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Tihar-style bhindi fry, and the wait for slow-motion justice
May 5, 2024, 8:15 AM IST
In May 1983, I was one of 350-odd JNU students who ended up in Tihar jail. I don’t recall what it was about, but it led to the president of the student union being expelled…
May 5, 2024, 8:15 AM IST
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FROM TOI PRINT EDITION
Lucknow lessons, and the maze of public relief
April 7, 2024, 5:00 AM IST
When I was growing up, we all knew families that were on the way down. Once prosperous or even wealthy, undermined by a generation or two of profligacy and self-indulgence. The impressive house was falling…
April 7, 2024, 5:00 AM IST
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FROM TOI PRINT EDITION
Some do savings, some do shami
March 3, 2024, 2:00 AM IST
The best batata bhaji I ever had was on a train from Hyderabad to Delhi. I had been smelling it since my neighbour got on in Nagpur and placed his towel-wrapped tiffin carrier dangerously close…
March 3, 2024, 2:00 AM IST
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One Chineej, many Chinas
February 4, 2024, 3:00 AM IST
I was six when I first tasted Chinese food. Pigeon Roast in a restaurant called Eros, at the edge of Kolkata’s crumbling ‘New’ Market, a plump little bird rich with what I now know to…
February 4, 2024, 3:00 AM IST
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The promises of elusive maharanis, and no-strings-attached money
January 6, 2024, 4:19 PM IST
I must have been six or seven when for the first and probably last time, my parents were invited to a New Year’s Eve party along with the children. It was in a big house…
January 6, 2024, 4:19 PM IST
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Memories of ma, and the sweet melange of ghonto
December 3, 2023, 5:00 AM IST
I was in Kolkata for pujo this year and since my mother’s cook was on leave, I picked a restaurant that seemed nice. My mother hated it. She was bothered by these very well-built young…
December 3, 2023, 5:00 AM IST
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FROM TOI PRINT EDITION
Cooking for comfort in a crisis time
November 5, 2023, 11:37 AM IST
The first known case of Covid-19 is from December 2019, which means it was circulating in Wuhan that November. Four years ago. I first noticed that the pandemic was getting to me when Cheyenne, who…
November 5, 2023, 11:37 AM IST
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Wet dhotis, satin shirts and pujor bhog
October 1, 2023, 4:00 AM IST
My great-great-grandfather is one of the figures that most families probably have (or need to invent), whose impractical ways lost us our one chance of being really rich. My favourite from the many stories my…
October 1, 2023, 4:00 AM IST
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Small bites and big bets: The challenge of philanthropy
September 2, 2023, 8:47 PM IST
It was the first time I had been invited to the kind of reception where important people go to meet even more important people. I was still young and absolutely not important, invited probably because…
September 2, 2023, 8:47 PM IST
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